SAFA Skysailor Magazine

37 SUMMER 2025/2026 | December-January-February SKY SAILOR This only made me more excited to talk to her and hear about her style of flying, her mindset, and her experience. I’d heard she’d done a 300km vol-biv triangle with her partner in the Alps, that she had acro experience, and that she held the Mystic H&F record. How could I not be curious? Irene and I caught up via Zoom to talk about the differences of flying in Australia versus Europe, her early days of combining flying with ski touring, her favourite lines in Bright, and her Mystic H&F record. Q&A with Irene Weijers Take me back to the start. How did paragliding begin for you? I lived in Austria for a long time, and I was already doing all the mountain stuff – mountaineering, ski touring, hiking – the mountains were kind of my place. A good friend of mine, Remy (now my partner) paraglided, and I’d watch him fly off after a hike and thought, this is cool. One day, he had a friend take me for a tandem, and that was it. I was like, oh my god, imagine the things you can do! Hike up a mountain, then just slide off. It was totally the adventure side that hooked me. The following summer, I started learning to fly. My teacher Chrissy was amazing. She was really into hike & fly, and I think that set the tone for me. That winter, Remy and I mixed paragliding with ski touring. We’d fly to a mountain, do a little slope landing, stash our wings under a rock, put skins on, hike to the top, and ski back down. I was using flying as a mode of travel, and it felt like freedom. You had a few big learning moments early on – how did they shape your flying, and the way you think about progression and risk? I was learning really fast in the beginning, and I definitely pushed myself too far at one point. I’d only been flying four months when I ended up in a tree in the Alps. I basically got spat out behind a thermal and had to follow a slope until I hit a wall of trees and had no options left. Photos: Irene Weijers